“Remember that deal I was furious about losing back in the middle of last year.” “Sorry Tim.” I had to confess to Tim that unfortunately I did not. “You know the one,” Tim continued, “I thought my sales team had it all wrapped up and then we lost it.” “Oh yes, vaguely,” I replied. “Well I just found out this week why we lost. It turns out that a business acquaintance of the decision maker had just come off a really bad experience with us where from her point of view we over promised on a crucial delivery schedule. She ended up not hiring us for any additional work and I never bothered to find out why, now I know.”
“That’s awesome Tim, that you found out why you lost the client, at least now you can do something about it. Your situation reminds me of a couple recent consumer purchases I made at the end of last year. In December the screen on my supposedly high end HP laptop died after less than two years of use. To purchase its replacement, I went looking for a non HP 12” disposable Netbook that could easily run Windows 7 and Microsoft Office applications. I ended up purchasing a brand that I had never used, let alone, heard of. What caused me to purchase a Hannspree were the excellent crowd sourcing reviews, so I knew what I was getting before the actual purchase. This is the way I now narrow down movie selections (Rotten Tomatoes), new restaurants (Yelp) and more recently how I select local handymen and contractors to do work in and around my house. For selecting the last two service providers for my house, a plumber and handyman, I used the crowd sourcing reviews on Angie’s List.”
“Excuse me Jeff, what does consumer crowd sourcing got to do with me losing a deal due to a bad employee commitment?” Tim finally exclaimed.
“Although crowd sourcing is relatively new Tim” I continued, “the buying process has not changed. If you lose an existing client unexpectedly or lose winning a new client when you think you should have won, you must understand why your offer was not selected. Are you targeting the wrong buyer which leads to bad client “reviews”, is your offer inferior to other choices in a particular category, or is there an expectation mismatch that could have been avoided? Only by finding out why buyers really select your offer and even more importantly, why they do not or decide to not work with you any longer, is it possible to make the necessary changes to your sales, marketing, and offer to take the next leap forward in terms of what the collective wisdom of the “crowd” thinks about your offer.”
“At least it was worth the wait Jeff, got to run, just checking though that there is no apostrophe in the web address for Angie’s List, right, because I need an electrician.”
